You are just more irritated and upset afterwards and, if anything, you've made your social worse. These negative emotions only make social anxiety stronger.Īggression against your anxiety doesn't work. You cannot overcome social anxiety by using another negative emotion, like anger, frustration, depression, irration, or aggression. Fighting fire with fire is not a way to put the fire out.Īnxiety is a negative emotion. The main point of group therapy or use of the audio series is that the strategies we learn can be used in practical situations, in the world you currently live in.įighting fire with fire makes the fire stronger and burn brighter. That, by the way, is why we systematically go through these strategies in our groups, and in the series, because one strategy that we learn builds on other strategies, so doing them in a special order is the only way to have it work. Anger or any other negative emotion thrown into the situation just reinforces the ANTs, so it's important that we handle overcoming social anxiety in the right way. I had to remind her that the ANTs only go away as we calmly call their bluff - as we calmly catch them, label them as irrational, and dismiss them. ![]() The automatic negative thoughts have bothered us and caused us great emotional pain for decades, so wanting a quick release from ANTs makes sense on the surface. You can't overcome social anxiety by using aggression or anger. Recently, I received a letter from a woman who was getting mad at her automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) thinking this would help her get rid of them faster.
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